| Directors
Special – Do they lose glory without
assistants? |
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Behind
every successful man is a woman, well
not always. Not at least in the case
of Kollywood hit makers. Ace directors
who delivered smash hit movies at
the box office could not have done
so without their assistant directors.
There are numerous instances to prove
our point though, if you are skeptical.
And if that is not enough, the miserable
performance of the movies of veteran
directors devoid of their assistants
stand proof for this. |
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Balachander
One of the ace directors of
Kollywood, Balachander had quite
a handful of talented assistants
to his credit. Prominent of
them being Vasanth and Charan.
Vasanth’s movies always
had a Balachander touch to it
and on the other hand Charan
learnt the nuances of movie
making from his Guru. Though
Balachander is a single-man-army,
the hands of his assistants
in his hits are definitely not
to be disregarded.
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Bharathiraja
The classic example of a hit-director’s
unbecoming is Bharathiraja.
His golden times were during
the late 80s and 90s when he
had quite a few gem of assistants
with him including Manivannan,
Bhagyaraj, and Manobala. Bhagyaraj
quit him for good and went on
to make movies on his own eventually
surpassing his Guru’s
excellence in story telling.
Manivannan and Manobala left
Bharathiraja subsequently robbing
him of his luster.
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Following this, the movies that ensued
Mudal Mariyadai did not sustain at
the box office, neither did they exemplify
the intellectual storytelling that
Bharathiraja was conversant with.
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The Others
Pavithran’s loss of his
assistant Shankar backfired
miserably on his career eventually
making it non-existent. However,
his assistant Shankar is every
producer’s bet and is
a dream director of every artiste
in the industry. There are exemptions
to this trend too. Bala and
Cheran who served as assistants
to Balumahendra and K.S. Ravikumar
did not do any harm to the careers
of their gurus though. They
went on to direct pretty good
movies and are noted for their
trend setting movies in Tamil.
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Shankar’s assistant Balaji Sakthivel
pulled off a mega hit with his Kadal
and Vasathabalan is busy with his Veyil.
Interestingly enough, they directed
movies for their guru Shankar’s
banner only. |
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Assistant director trend
now
Though that is history, assistant
directors these days are shrewder
than hungry for learning some
direction lessons from their
bosses. Cheran does not prefer
to involve his assistants during
his story discussions because
he feels otherwise. That his
assistants have nothing to contribute
to his story.
Ramesh Kanna has a different
perspective for not involving
assistants. He would rather
discuss his stories with his
friends than his assistants
because he thinks his assistants
would save a good scene for
their own projects.
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Bhagyaraj,
in a public function, openly
confessed his fear of discussing
his projects with his assistants.
He stated that he was shocked
to see certain comic sequences
in a recently released movie,
which were his own. He realized
that Vadivelu who enacted the
scene had nothing to do with
this and it was only because
of his assistant who eventually
was the assistant for the other
movie as well.
Sharathkumar
stated that assistant directors
should provide innovative ideas
rather than keeping their ideas
for themselves for their own
venture.
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Assistants and Tamil
cinema’s future
It used to be months of never
ending wait to enroll into a
director’s stable as an
assistant director those days.
That is over though; just a
diploma from the film institute
is enough to impress the personalities
these days. Only when dedicated
individuals who are ambitious
and conscious about their work
come into the scene will Tamil
cinema excel in story telling.
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